domenica 2 novembre 2014

Merlin's Premier League 94

From 1978 to 1993 Panini published every year the official sticker collection of the English League. Starting from the season 1993/1994 it's the company Merlin that took over the sticker collection with the first edition "Merlin's Premier League 94" that we present here.

The openinig page includes the first two stickers: the shining Premier League logo and Andy Gray from Sky Sports (with his foreword on the right page). Then the 22 teams included are showed in alphabetical order. Each team has three pages and a total of 19 stickers: club badge (shining), team photo, star player in action (two stickers), and 15 players. There are statistics of the team and the players. Also, pictures of the coach and the stadium are included.

Manchester United won the season with 92 points. Second place for the surprising Blackburn of Alan Shearer (31 goals) and third place for Newcastle of top scorer Andy Cole (34 goals).

The amazing Manchester United of Alex Ferguson in the season 1993/1994 featured Peter Schmeichel, Paul Ince, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, Eric Cantona, and Mark Hughes.

In the middle of the album there are four special sections. The first is the "Club programmes", with 22 stickers of the matchday programme of each club. Then "Fabulous footballing facts about Sky" includes six stickers about Sky Sports, "Home and Away" the kits of each team (with a total of 22 shining stickers), and "Honours" the list of the League and FA Cup winners with two stickers of the trophies.

The album closes with a special section about "Rising stars", in which we find 8 stickers of young players that showed great potential, and "Honours" with a list of Charity Shield and League Cup winners and two stickers of the trophies.